“I know,” Thea said sadly, smiling. “And I won’t let anything happen to him. Or to you.” Thea reached out and grasped Annie’s hands, squeezing tightly.
“What do you mean?” Annie asked her, confusion and surprise in her eyes. Thea cursed herself for acting the way she was. She couldn’t let Annie in on her plan–and she didn’t want Annie anywhere near her when she eventually left Maine. She knew that if anyone could talk her out of leaving, Annie could.
“I just…,” Thea grasped for words, wondering what she could say. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you guys.”
“Nothing will happen,” Annie reassured her, though she couldn’t hide the fear in her eyes from Thea. “We’re going to protect you, no matter what. And Michael, the Elder that is trying to stop it all, is on our side. And he’s one of the strongest Elders around. You’ll be fine, I’ll be fine, everyone will be fine–and this whole thing will be over soon.”
“Yes, it will,” Thea smiled at her, squeezing her hands again.
It would all be over soon, as long as Thea got her way and she was able to flee without anyone knowing. The only thing that Thea learned from the conversation with Annie was that the situation was worse than Kato was telling her. Thea knew what she had to do, and her talk with Annie just emphasized it. The conversation just made her plan real.
She needed to leave Maine, secretly, to save herself–and to, more importantly, save her friends and family and everyone she loved. She wouldn’t let one person die to protect her. If that meant that she had to leave behind her loved ones and sacrifice herself by running away, then that’s what that meant. Thea didn’t know if she could really leave Kato behind, though. She found that she was falling for him harder than she’d ever fallen for anyone else. She…she loved him, and it hurt her when she realized that she would have to leave him behind. She would have to leave her one true love behind, in order to save him and everyone else she loved. And that killed her.
Thea knew exactly what she had to do now. There was no going back.
Chapter 26
For the past few days, Kato met with Annie, Lukas, Britta, and Grant for training. The group began to rely on each other in ways that they never had before, and Kato felt his heart grow when Britta and Grant volunteered to keep watch and join the shifters that were protecting Thea. Thea, of course, had no idea that this was going on, as Hann didn’t want to frighten her as the threats from the Elders loomed. Kato felt a bit weird keeping everything from Thea, but he didn’t want to worry her.
Michael attempted to cool the situation as best as he could, but Kato soon found out that the other Elders wanted some type of payback for all the years when they were shoved away for this and that. They wanted to bring the shifter society back to where it was all those centuries ago. They wanted the rules to be enforced. And one way to do that was to hurt Thea.
The pack wouldn’t let that happen, though.
As Kato walked into the forest clearing, about to shift, he heard Britta run up behind him in her human form and try to catch him by surprise. He turned quickly, blocking the blow that she tried to give him, making her slam to the ground in surprise. Kato laughed and stared as she lay on the ground, moaning from the hard impact of her failed surprise attack.
“You okay there?” Kato laughed as he put out his hand, pulling Britta up when she clasped onto him.
“I thought I was late,” Britta said, out of breath from getting the wind knocked out of her. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Grant’s running late like always,” Kato told her, smirking when he saw Britta roll her eyes. Those two were going to kill him. “And I know that Annie and Lukas were having breakfast with Hann this morning, so they’ll be a little late, I think.”
Britta and Kato walked more into the clearing, and Britta took off her leather jacket as she stepped into the sunshine. After throwing it on the ground, Kato informed her that they were going to be training and practicing their defense moves today.
“Can I be honest with you for a second?” Britta asked as they both sat on the grass, waiting for the others to show up. Kato looked over at her, noticing the embarrassed look on her face in surprise. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Britta look embarrassed in any way. It was weird seeing it now on her face.
“Of course,” Kato told her. Kato had always considered Britta to be a good friend, and he was surprised to see she was embarrassed to ask him something.
“I thought you were going to ask me to be your mate,” she said in a rush. “I heard rumors that you were looking for one, especially because Hann was talking about making you the official alpha after he retires or leaves. And you know that most alphas like to have a mate lined up immediately when they take over, or at the very least before they even become an alpha. And I thought you were going to…I don’t, I guess it’s really dumb.”
“No, it’s not,” Kato assured her. “I…well, I was. But I decided to fight for Thea instead. I decided to follow my heart, regardless of where that led. I’m sorry. I know that it sounds horrible to say, but I had to choose Thea.”
“I figured. And I’m not hurt about that, trust me. I only would’ve said yes because you were going to be alpha, if I’m being honest with you. I just…well, I wanted to know how you realized that you wanted to be with Thea?” she asked him, still embarrassed.
“What do you mean?” Kato asked her, a bit confused. Her embarrassment was still throwing him off. She was the most confident shifter he knew, and he didn’t think she ever felt like this.
“I mean, how did you know that Thea was the one?” she asked him. “How did you realize that you wanted to be with her, even though she was human?”
Kato shook his head, unable to say anything. “I don’t know. I just knew, I guess. I’m not sure that I can explain it. Not accurately, at least.”
Britta, looking even more embarrassed than before, seemed to decide to just confess to him. “I’m scared that I’m never going to find a mate like you, and Annie, and everyone else. When people think about mating with shifters in the pack, they never think of me, do they? I’m just that girl that’s been with everyone in the pack, right? Even though that’s wrong–that’s all just rumors and speculation that hold no truth. Most guys just say that they slept with me so that they can get street cred nowadays, but I’m not some girl that goes around sleeping with everyone. And even if I was, what’s the big deal? I just don’t know if I’ll ever find someone to mate with. At least, not in this pack.”
Kato stared at Britta, not knowing what to say. He wanted to comfort her, but he truly didn’t know how.
“Britta, you’ll find someone to mate with,” Kato told her. “Trust me. When I thought that I was going to ask you to be my mate, I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. I was doing it because I needed to get Thea out of my head. I was doing it because I thought that the only way that I would be able to be a strong alpha was to have a strong mate that was a shifter. But I realized that if I was unhappy, if I wasn’t true to my mate, I wouldn’t be strong–and neither would she. I did the only thing that I thought would make me a better man–and that was to be with Thea. Because she’s the strongest woman I know. And because I…well, I love her. I love her more than anything else in the world.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever find someone that loves me as much as you love Thea,” Britta confessed, tears filling her eyes. Kato had never seen as much fear and uncertainty in one of the strongest shifters he knew, and it threw him off. He hated that she felt like this.
“Sometimes, love comes out of nowhere,” Kato told her. “And from the last place you would expect. I never thought that I would fall in love with Thea like I have. But I’m in deep, now. And maybe someone, someone that you never expected, will love you more than you’ll ever know. And maybe you’ll love them just as much as they love you.”
Just then, Grant walked through the dense trees and into the forest clearing. K
ato and Britta stood up, and Kato saw Britta hide her emotions completely as Grant walked over so that he wouldn’t see the feelings she was having.
“Hey, kids,” Grant said as he walked over, slapping Kato on the back and messing with Britta’s hair. She ducked under his arm, slapping his hand away with a smile on her face.
Kato smiled at the two, laughing under his breath as both began to play fight with each other. Kato knew that as long as Grant was around and being his annoying self, Britta would be quite alright.
Chapter 27
Thea was sick of waiting for the Elders to show up and change her life forever. So, after days of thinking about what she was going to do, she finally decided to make her own decision. She was taking matters into her own hands. She was taking her future into her own hands. She was saving everyone. She was doing what was right.
What Annie told her kept on eating at her, and she was angry and upset that Kato didn’t feel comfortable enough to even tell her anything. She knew why he didn’t want to, of course. He was afraid that she would freak out–like what she was doing now.
Before she could even process exactly what she was doing, Thea found herself in her car, driving to Hann’s house. She would keep her promise to him, as he had kept her promise and not told anyone what she was planning on doing. Of course, she had a feeling Hann thought he would be able to talk her out of it. He couldn’t, though. Thea’s mind was made up, and not even Annie or Kato would be able to talk her down.
Thea got out of her car once she got to Hann’s house. She paused for a second, standing outside and admiring the house that she had almost grown up in. Since meeting Annie in elementary school, the two girls had become inseparable. Thea spent many sleepovers and after school play dates in this house when they were growing up, and Hann had always been like a father to her. She admired the colonial style home, walking in between the two white columns that held the brick house together in the front. She would miss this house.
As she knocked on the door, she prayed that Hann would be okay with her decision. She didn’t know what she would do if he started talking about how disappointed he was. She would probably cry. She was barely holding it together as it was as she waited for him to open the door.
Thea waited a few more minutes, impatiently knocking the whole time. After finally coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t home, she decided to, again, use his spare key to let herself into his house. She would just wait for him to show up. After waiting a few minutes more, Thea felt the restlessness and nerves in her bones grow. She needed to act now, or she didn’t know if she ever would.
Walking to this office where she and Annie used to study before tests when they were younger, Thea grabbed a piece of paper and pen, writing down a short letter to Hann about what she was going to do. This way, he couldn’t get mad at her for leaving without saying anything. She knew that she should probably call him or, at the very least, text him to see where he was or tell him that way. But she really didn’t want to have that conversation. She needed to do this now, and the letter that she left on his kitchen table would just have to do it.
As she walked out of Hann’s house, locking the door behind her and putting the spare key back behind the frog statue near a window in the front of the house, she wondered where Hann was. She looked back up at the house that she basically grew up in, wishing that he was here to talk to her. She was going to stop by her parents’ house and tell them that she was going on a backpacking trip in Europe, so she wouldn’t have cell service. She was setting everything up, setting her plan in motion to disappear, but she felt like she needed Hann here. She needed to tell him.
So, against everything that she decided, she found herself calling him on her cellphone as she stared up at that colonial home. He didn’t answer. She texted him asking him where he was before she tried again. After three calls that he didn’t answer, Thea decided to give up. Maybe this was the universe telling her to just go. Maybe it was better that Hann didn’t talk to her before she left.
With a new resigned feeling in her stride, Thea walked back to her car, tears watering her eyes. If she was being honest with herself, she wanted Hann to be here. A little part of her wanted someone to talk her down, to tell her that they would find a way out of this situation they were in. Hann would’ve done that. But now, with her plan set in motion, the only thing she could do was act it all out.
Thea started driving to her parents’ house, going over what she was going to say to them in her mind. She felt her blonde hair blow in the chilly air that was coming through her open window. She welcomed the cold air, feeling it embrace her heated cheeks and nervous heart.
She was going to leave tonight, in the middle of the night if she needed to. She wanted to leave immediately when she got home, if no one was there, so as not to let anyone in on her plan. She had already written both Annie and Kato separate notes, explaining what she was doing and why she felt she had to. She only hoped that they would understand.
She didn’t want to leave in the middle of the night, when everyone was sleeping, because she was nervous that they would wake up with their shifter senses and stop her. If she had to, though, she would. As Thea pulled into her parent’s driveway, she came to the conclusion that she would leave as soon as she got home. She would have to if she wanted to actually stick to her plan.
She didn’t know how she was going to live without Kato, though.
Chapter 28
“Where could your dad be?” Kato asked Annie as they walked to his car, which was parked in front of the pack bar. They had been training all day, and as night began to fall, they wanted to check in with Hann to see if there had been any recent developments.
Lukas and Grant were meeting with some members of the pack at the bar to try to get them to join in on the training sessions, while Britta went to take her shift and keep watch on Thea tonight. Annie and Kato thought that Hann would be at the bar, but he wasn’t there, and he wasn’t answering his cellphone.
“Maybe we’ll try his house?” Annie suggested, hanging up her phone when she tried calling him again. Both Kato and Annie couldn’t help the distraught feeling they had in their stomach. There was so much tension in the air recently, and what may just be Hann getting some fresh air for himself stressed them out.
“Yeah, let’s go there,” Kato told her as they got in his truck, brushing his brown hair back with his hands. “Call him again while we drive over there.”
Kato couldn’t help the uneasy feeling he had in his stomach. He just hoped that he was stressing about nothing, and Hann was at home cooking dinner or watching TV. He hoped that everything was okay. He thought about calling Thea just in case, but he knew that Britta would’ve already notified him through phone or their connected communication through their brain waves if something wrong was going on.
As they got to Hann’s house, both he and Annie briskly walked to the front door, knocking and ringing the doorbell as they waited for him to answer. When he didn’t answer, Annie recommended that they just go in the house and check everything out.
“I have a key,” she told him, taking out her keychain and opening the front door with one of the keys. “Let’s just make sure everything’s okay.”
She didn’t need to say anything else. Kato himself was imagining Hann lying on the floor in blood in his bedroom. It was rare when they couldn’t reach their alpha, and Kato hated the closed door Hann seemed to have put up in his mental communication. Normally, Kato could feel him and communicate with him. Now, it was like he was trying to talk to him, but his words were bouncing off of a locked, sealed door.
As they both walked into Hann’s house, they split up and took different sides of the house. Kato didn’t see anything weird as he checked Hann’s office, bedroom and spare bedrooms. When he walked back to meet with Annie in the living room, he realized that something was off.
Annie stood in the middle of the living room, her hands shaking as s
he read a note. One hand was covering her mouth, her eyes wide with surprise and fear.
“Annie?” Kato asked tentatively, his mind reeling with possibilities of what she was reading.
“I knew something was off with her,” she whispered as she continued to read. “I knew I should’ve never told her that story.”
“Annie?” Kato tried again, taking a quiet step forward so he could see the letter. “What’s going on?”
Before Annie could reply, Kato got a view of the letter she was holding in her shaking hands. And he swore it looked like Thea’s handwriting.
“It’s Thea,” Annie whispered, finally breaking her gaze from the letter and looking at Kato. He could sense the fear she was emoting, and he began to feel his heartbeat quicken. He grabbed the letter from her hands and read exactly what Thea was planning. What she had been planning. And what Hann seemed to have known about.
Anger filled his bones as he read the fear and uncertainty in Thea’s words. When he read that she was doing this for them, that she was trying to protect everyone, he felt like he was breaking. Thea, his Thea, the love of his life, had felt like this, and he hadn’t even known. He knew that she was having a hard time with the Elders–but who wouldn’t? He didn’t know that she was thinking of doing this.
And he didn’t understand why she kept on referencing Annie’s mother. Annie’s mother was dead. As Kato finished reading, more questions swirling in his mind than anything, he glanced up at Annie, seeing his own fear reflected in her eyes.
“What happened to your mother?” he quietly asked her, trying to make sense of everything that was happening.
Annie sighed, her shaking hands pushing back her brown hair as she tried to calm herself. She sniffled, as if trying to stop the tears in her eyes from falling.
“Kato, it’s a long story,” she told him. “I told Thea because I tell her everything. I didn’t think she would use this as a…. I didn’t think she would do the same thing.”
Dangerous Love (Moon Light Wolves Book 2) Page 9
